Workers protests at Forest City, only Chinese newspapers interested?

Saw this story by Nanyang yesterday,

You all can read it in full at http://www.enanyang.my/?p=1308055

It happened on Friday.

I tried to find the story in the English and Bahasa Malaysia publications but can't find any.

So, let me give you all some details about it based on the Nanyang's report;

1. A group of construction workers made up of locals and Chinese nationals, gathered at Forest City, Johor in the morning of (25^th Oct) Friday.

2. They were there  to demand for arrears of payment from the main contractor for renovation works carried out on a project.

3. The workers, who were employed by a sub-contractor hired by the main contractor engaged by Forest City have not been paid their salary.

 4. As their repeated request for payment went unheeded, the group decided to launch a protest. 

5. It was learnt that the sub-contractor had claimed that it has not been paid for three months for the work done by the main contractor, named by Nanyang as Lijie International Construction Development (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd.

6. The protesting workers were about to take out their banners when staff from the Forest City sales gallery, together with the company's security team stopped them.

7. Forest City in a short statement said the company had duly paid Lijie  in accordance with the contract and that the dispute was not directly related to the Forest City project or the developer.  

8. The statement also added it was sympathetic with the plight of the affected workers and will help them to resolve the matter.

9. A Labour Rights Service Station have been set up since beginning of the month to ensure swift coordination of such disputes, the Nanyang report says.

My questions ;

1. Is Forest City going to claim it is being “victimised” again or it just doesn’t know how to pick contractors of integrity, at least one that can manage sub-contractors payment on time? Or is there something else going on?

2. Why this kind of pay dispute drama involving the company which is managing Forest City keeps happening? The last previous two were on October 16 involving the Central Park project and on September 7 involving another project at Forest City. Both incidents were reported by the Chinese newspapers.

3. Who are actually these "main contractors" appointed by Forest City who kept failing to pay the sub-contractors causing workers not being paid their salaries? Are they Malaysians or from mainland China? What is their real connection with Forest City?

I hope the English and Bahasa Malaysia media, will take interest in this and find answers to those questions.

I'm not sure why they didn't report the story so far.

I talked with a Johor-based journalist friend working for one of the Chinese newspapers about it and this is what he said;

"It has happened so many times that probably the English and Bahasa Malaysia media have became accustomed to such workers protests at Forest City that they don't feel the need to report it.  Either that or they are still hoping to get advertisement money from the property giant, and therefore don’t cover such news."

Of course he said that in Chinese. I just translated it.

Well, I think the authorities should have a look into it.

After all, this is Malaysia Baru and that is Forest City which was a big issue in the run-up to GE14.

Remember this?

And here is a video of one of those workers protests,